Thank you everyone.
Chris. You can self yours when it blooms ... then grow the seedlings & you can grow old together. I have another followup batch coming along, but they will be several years yet.
Rosim. Having a lot of good plants is nice. I enjoy seeing the blooms. But as you know, there's a lot of work, assigning identifying info & photographing them ... especially when a dozen or two bloom in quick succession. And I can't just photograph them once. I photograph first blooms to get a record. Then I photograph every subsequent bloom, because flowers improve as the plants mature.
In the case of my walkerianas (which bloom in November/December, then again in January-March), I shoot them in each season. The Nov/Dec bloom isn't as good, because it's too warm (but I have to shoot it to make sure I get the record). In Jan-March, the flowers are usually better.
As the plants get larger, the flowers get larger & (especially in the case of violaceas) more numerous. When the plants get large enough, there are then multiple spikes. I'm sure you know all of this.
So the blooms are a mixed blessing. Always nice to look at, but lots of work involved, in addition to all my other work.
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